tOtCAJflC WSACtlOS «. 
4G1 
Slnoke disappear in an instant, whilst no shock whatever 
was felt. At that very moment, sixty-five leagues south- 
ward, between Chimborazo, Tunguragua, and the Altar 
(Capac-Urcu), the town of Kiobamba was overtln’own by 
the most terrible earthquake on record. Is it possible to 
doubt, from this coincidence of phenomena, that the vapours 
issuing from the small apertures or venlanillas of the volcano 
of Pasto had an influence on the pressure of those elastic 
fluids which convulsed the earth in the kingdom of Quito, 
and destroyed in a few minutes thirty or forty thousand 
inhabitants F 
To explain those great effects of volcanic reactions, and 
to prove that the group or system of the volcanos of the 
West India Islands may sometimes shake the continent, I 
have cited the Cordillera of the Andes. Geological reason- 
ing can be suppox-ted only by the analogy of facts which are 
recent, and consequently well authenticated: and in what 
other region of the globe could we find greater and more 
varied volcanic phenomena than in that double chain of 
mountains heaved up by fire F in that land where nature has 
covered every mountain and every valley with her marvels F 
If we consider a burning crater only as an isolated pheno- 
menon, if we he satisfied with merely examining the mass of 
stony substances which it has thrown up, the volcanic action 
at the surface of the globe will appear neither very powerful 
nor very extensive. But the image of this action becomes 
enlarged in the mind when we study the relations which 
link together volcanos of the same group; for instance, 
those of Naples and Sicily, of the Canary Islands,* of the 
• I have already observed (p. 1 13) that the whole group of the Canary 
Islands rises, as we may say, above one and the same submarine vol- 
cano. Since the sixteenth century, the fire of this volcano has burst 
forth alternately in Palma, Teneriffe, and Lancerote. Auvergne presents 
a whole system of volcanos, the action of which has now ceased ; but in 
the middle of a system of active volcanos, for instance, in that of Quito, 
we must not consider as an extinguished volcano a mountain, the crater 
nf which is obstructed, and through which the subterraneous fire has 
not issued for ages. Etna, the Aolian Isles, Vesuvius, and Bpomeo ; 
the peak of Teyde, l’alina, and Lancerote; St. Michael, La Caldiera of 
Fayal, and Pico ; St. Vincent, St. Lucia, and Guadaloupe ; Orizava, 
Popocatepetl, Jorullo, and La Colima; Ilombacho, the volcano of G re- 
uada, Telica, Momotombo, Isalco, and the volcano of Guatimnla ( 
